Non-covetousness. Why does every person need to have this virtue?  

In the mid-15th century, two special religious movements emerged in the Russian Orthodox Church. These two directions were different from each other. One of them was called Josephiteness, and the other was non-covetousness.

The ideologist of Josephiteism was Joseph Volotsky, who defended a conservative attitude towards all movements in the church. But the leader of the non-covetous people became Nil Sorsky. Our article is about how these directions developed.

Non-covetousness

this is one of the main spiritual and moral foundations of Holy Rus'

The essence of this direction was the predominance of spiritual and moral motives of life behavior over material interests.

As we know, in the souls of all our ancestors, and above all ordinary peasants, there was always a sense of justice, and not just material retribution. Even then, people believed that they needed to live with dignity and remunerate according to their conscience.

Around the 19th century, an ideal of justice was created, which became a kind of compass for Russian people. He talked about the fact that there is no need to chase wealth and profit. It was these goals in life that were considered unworthy.

The most important thing was that you need to live your life kindly, in truth and with dignity.

A person should never strive for wealth or hoarding; he should always be content with what he has. The Russian people also came up with various proverbs and sayings, for example, extra money means extra worries.

Non-covetousness is an evangelical virtue, as well as one of the monastic vows upon tonsure

In Orthodoxy we often hear such a word as “non-covetousness.” What it is? Non-covetousness is an evangelical virtue, which is expressed in a person’s independence from the passion for hoarding, as well as excessive attachment to material goods. It is the subject of one of the three monastic vows that is considered to be non-covetousness. Let's consider what the holy fathers said about what non-covetousness is and how to acquire it.

The Monk Isaac the Syrian said that no one can acquire true non-covetousness if he cannot endure all temptations with great joy in his soul:

“...no one can acquire real non-covetousness unless he prepares to endure temptations with joy. Without non-acquisitiveness, the soul cannot free itself from the rebellion of thoughts and, without bringing the feelings into silence, it will not feel peace in thought.”

Isaac Sirina

Reverend

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Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov said that in order to acquire love for spiritual and heavenly objects, one must completely renounce love for earthly objects:

“...He who distributed his property to the poor in order to show complete obedience to the Savior... who himself became a beggar in order to subject himself to the hardships associated with poverty and abundantly bringing humility, by this action destroys all his hope in the world, concentrating it in God.

In order to acquire love for spiritual and heavenly objects, one must renounce love for earthly objects. Non-acquisitiveness and renunciation of the world are a necessary condition for achieving perfection. The mind and heart must be completely directed towards God, all obstacles, all reasons for entertainment must be eliminated...”

Ignatiy Brianchaninov

saint

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Vow of non-covetousness: An action-packed story

The action-packed story “The Vow of Noncovetousness” takes place today in a monastery.
The main character, novice Dimitri, faces a choice: stay in the monastery or go into the world. It is at this time that he has to delve into a dramatic investigation involving criminal elements. And only spiritual training does not allow him to succumb to emotions and helps him calmly complete the investigation, although this, of course, cannot solve his own spiritual problems. Here is an excerpt from the book:

Alejandro Juan Gonzalez appeared at the monastery more than a year ago, showing particular interest in the pre-revolutionary history of the monastery. Actually, this is how they met Dima, because the annoying foreigner was immediately paired with the educated monastery librarian. It turned out that, being Gonzalez on his father’s side, on his mother’s side he belonged to the family of Russian emigrants Vostorgov and one of the ancestors of the current Gonzalez was once the governor of the Xenophon Desert. Librarian Dima, who was engaged in historical research, found Alejandro’s ancestor in documents from the pre-revolutionary era, recently discovered in the regional archive and, not without Dima’s efforts, returned to the monastery. Indeed, Abbot Eleutherius, who was the abbot of the monastery from 1909 to 1922, bore the surname Vostorgov, and on this occasion, the current abbot Dionysius celebrated a memorial service with a requiem, at which the emotional Argentine cried like a baby. The former abbot was buried in a foreign land, somewhere in Argentina, but he kept the memory of his native land until his very last days. However, Alejandro himself did not know his distant relative, because he was born after his death, but he heard a lot from his mother. His inspiration from visiting the land of his ancestors reached the point that, having himself been baptized in the Catholic rite and experiencing very moderate religious zeal, he suddenly became inflamed with an urgent desire to be baptized into the Orthodox faith, in order to thereby confirm his continuity from Slavic blood. Well, since Catholics are not rebaptized into Orthodoxy, he limited himself to confession with Father Theodosius and the communion of the Holy Mysteries, which, in essence, was the moment of Orthodox initiation of Catholics.

Having finally found a worthy spiritual foundation, Alejandro one day turned to Dima with an unexpected question whether he could count on some form of gratitude from the Russian government if he found a treasure on the territory of the monastery. Dima was not an expert in this matter, but he had heard something about the twenty-five percent reward, like everyone else. Then Alejandro admitted that he came to Ksenofontovo in order to find long-hidden valuables here. At first, his intentions were the most mercantile, to find everything and leave with it, but, having experienced a number of spiritual upheavals, he realized that he had to give everything to the Church. The point was that during the difficult years of the Civil War, a certain professor at Moscow University, Aristarkh Dmitrievich Konsovsky, a famous historian and archaeologist, took his collection of antique coins from Moscow to Severogorsk, which included, among others, unique specimens. During the terrible repressions after the Yaroslavl rebellion, Professor Konsovsky was hiding in the Xenophon Monastery, and he decided to hide the collection here, with Abbot Eleutherius. He had a safe haven in mind, and that’s what they decided on. After some time, the professor was forced to leave the monastery, and in the early twenties he was sent abroad. The abbot himself, after the monastery was closed, served three years in Solovki, and then found the opportunity to go abroad, where his brother and his family had already settled. After long wanderings, they settled in Argentina, Abbot Eleutherius even raised the Orthodox Church, where he served until his death. He knew that Professor Konsovsky died in Berlin in the twenties, and therefore the only one who knew anything about the collection of coins was he, Abbot Eleutherius. He believed that the collection belonged to Russia, but by Russia he understood an autocratic monarchical state and bequeathed to his descendants to notify officials about the collection only after a representative of the august family of the Romanovs ascended the throne again. In the generation to which Alejandro belonged, the prejudices of monarchism had disappeared, and therefore, knowing about the collection from his mother, Alejandro did not come to return everything to the state. But under the influence of monastic prayer, he was reborn before his eyes, or thought that he was reborn, and therefore he outlined all the secrets to Dima Nikitsky and the governor Dionysius.

It turned out that he had already even held consultations with specialists who knew something about Konsovsky’s pre-revolutionary collection. At one time it was exhibited at a numismatic exhibition in Paris and created a sensation. Some coins from Scythian burial grounds were simply a discovery. Professor Konsovsky took care of the collection in order to leave it to the university, but after the social storms his intentions could not help but change. In general, the current price of the collection, if it was preserved in its original composition, could reach up to five to six million dollars. Dima and Dionysius immediately figured that a quarter of this amount could dramatically speed up the process of restoring the monastery, and therefore for some time the whole life of the monastery revolved around this collection and its mysterious burial, which could not help but introduce a lot of passionate and confusing motives. After long and hard work, the mysterious burial was finally found, but there was nothing there, except for the inventory of Professor Konsovsky’s collection. Someone got ahead of them, and they then decided that this happened at least twenty years before the start of their search. After all, they remembered, Professor Konsovsky also had relatives, and they could take the initiative in their own time. Alejandro Gonzalez was very upset by the result of the search, only a conversation with Elder Theodosius consoled him, and he left for his homeland peacefully. Until now, he had sent letters of congratulations on holidays, sometimes, however, confusing the calendar style, and promised to come with his mother to the place of the spiritual feat of their glorious ancestor. He even talked about reburying his great-grandfather, and from Father Dionysius this met only with complete approval.

Dima then himself held consultations with specialists about the value of the lost collection. Konsovsky's coins still remained in some international catalogs, and their prices rose very high. Individual coins from the Roman Empire period were worth half a million dollars. The entire collection had already risen to fifteen million, but not a single coin appeared on the markets, and this made one think that if the collection had been found, they were in no hurry to sell it.

The passions around Gonzalez's treasure did not subside for a long time, even after Gonzalez himself left and the searches stopped. At first, the diocese accepted all this with enthusiasm in the hope of obtaining funds that were so lacking, but when everything ended in failure, they sharply changed their assessment of what was happening and began to reproach Father Dionysius for the unhealthy and vain mood in the monastic monastery. These accusations were all the more offensive because the founder of the monastery, the Monk Xenophon, at one time belonged to the firm non-covetous people; he believed that the monastery should beg, and all the funds, and sometimes considerable ones, that came to him from well-wishers, were immediately distributed to the poor and needy. It turned out that with his vanity the governor dishonored the memory of the founder. In general, the noise from this continued for a long time.

For Dima Nikitsky himself, that story left him with a keen sense of disappointment for the time he had wasted in vain. He was well aware that the Xenophon Monastery could not be a place of self-interested wandering, and he carried out the search out of obedience. He, too, was captured by excitement from time to time, and it was all the more annoying to remember it at the end, when everything ended in failure. He felt sorry for the efforts of Gonzalez himself, whom he, in general, liked, and Father Dionysius, in whom a gambler broke through through his monastic appearance, and everyone else who showed so much zeal in the search, and even more for himself, who did not I found convincing arguments not only to bring some sense to my neighbors, but at least to bring myself to reason in time.

So now he just as much wanted to forget about this whole long-past story as he wanted to bring the interrupted investigation to an end. With these doubts, Dima went to his confessor, Elder Theodosius.

Hegumen Theodosius was already in old age, and he was overcome by many illnesses, but he still represented a stronghold of the spirit and an image of truly Christian love. Outwardly, he somewhat resembled the fairy-tale doctor Aibolit, a gray beard, glasses, amusing plumpness and enthusiastic love. He treated everyone like a loving father towards naughty children, called everyone “darling”, affectionately scolded everyone, but his admonitions penetrated even the most entrenched souls. At one time, the elder was a parish priest, he had a mother and children, and back in the fifties he became famous in the Moscow region for his sermons, so that people came to him from the farthest ends. The authorities found some kind of crime in this, and the priest was imprisoned for five years for anti-Soviet agitation, but, as eyewitnesses said, even in the camp the attitude towards the priest was the most respectful, and on Easter the chief let him out of the camp zone so that he could sing Easter hymns. But at this time, in the Moscow region, bandits robbed my father’s house, beating my mother until she died a month later in the hospital. Although his son was expelled from the seminary after the priest was imprisoned, he somehow received ordination and served as a deacon in the Vladimir diocese, and his daughter, after the death of her mother, went to a monastery. So the priest returned after his imprisonment to an empty house, and the decision to take monastic vows was practically without an option for him. For a long time he labored in one of the Ukrainian monasteries, becoming famous there for his insight and soulful spirituality, but after tendencies towards independence began to prevail in Ukraine, the priest was forced to return to Russia. Many famous monasteries called him to be their confessor, but the priest chose for himself the Xenophon Monastery near Severogorsk, apparently hoping here, far from the capitals, to find some peace in his old age. This was not the case, and his faithful children came here to him from all over the former Union, so that the fame of the provincial monastery even aroused envy among some of those around him. But the bishop was too favorable to Father Theodosius and would not allow any volitional decisions to his detriment, so the enemies tried to infringe not on the elder himself, but on the monastery, discovering a huge number of statutory and organizational shortcomings in the conduct of affairs.

When the story of treasure hunting began, Father Theodosius never allowed himself to directly speak out against the vanity and passion of the seekers, but often implied this in personal conversations. Dima repeatedly tried to justify himself by saying that the funds received would be spent almost entirely on the needs of the diocese and would not bring benefits to the monastery itself, but the elder found cunning in this judgment and condemned not so much the purpose of the search as the unhealthy atmosphere in the monastery. But through the prayers of Father Theodosius, everything ended, and in subsequent conversations, Dima repeatedly admitted that the infectious passion for searching really did not benefit his soul, and no material benefits could compensate for this.

Now it was necessary to convince Father Theodosius that the current round of searches is not connected with material benefits at all, but pursues only the goal of identifying the truth. On the way to the elder’s cell, Dima spent a long time wondering how he could more accurately formulate the good goals of his investigation, but he couldn’t come up with anything.

Father Theodosius, as usual, sat at his desk and read letters. Letters came to him in a stream, and he tried to answer each one. Dima himself sometimes helped him with this. Seeing the guest enter, the elder immediately began to smile.

- He has arrived, servant of God Dimitri! Finally, dear, we already miss you. What's there in the capital?

“Vanity,” said Dima. - Bless, father...

Father Theodosius blessed him without getting up from his chair, and Dima sat down on the visitors' chair.

“To you, father, bow from the Pechersk elder Gerasim,” he remembered.

- Gerasima? - Theodosius was surprised. — This is from Pskov Pechory, right?

- Yes, from there. We met him in Moscow on occasion.

Theodosius shook his head.

- Wonderful old man, God save him! If it were not for the Monk Xenophon, I would certainly have gone to Pechory, to the Monk Cornelius. Truly a spiritual flower garden, one word. What does it say? How is Father John's health?

“Everyone is alive,” said Dima. - They get sick as usual. Father Gerasim nicely consoled me in my tossing.

Father looked at him with sympathy.

- As I understand it, heartache does not leave you?

“They don’t leave, father,” Dima sighed sadly. “But that’s not what I came for.” This is where things get complicated...

And he began to talk about his road adventure with its terrible ending, trying to create the appropriate mood in the listener. In his story, the murdered girl looked like a real lamb, led to the slaughter by unkind and selfish people, from which it followed that clarification of the circumstances was a worthy and godly matter. However, he never managed to deceive the elder.

“I see,” the elder remarked with a smile, “that instead of becoming a monk, you decided to take on the feat of a police inspector, huh?”

Dima bowed his head.

“This story haunts me,” he admitted. — There are two circumstances that worry me. The first is a murdered girl, an obvious evil, as they say, crying to heaven for retribution. And the second thing is that someone from our brethren, apparently, took advantage of Gonzalez’s treasure and is now looking for an opportunity to sell it at a reasonable price.

- And which of the circumstances worries you more? - asked Father Theodosius, nodding mournfully.

“Both, father,” admitted Dima. - What do you think?

The elder sighed and smiled.

“If you were a monk, I would answer you with a firm ban,” he said with regret that Dima is not a monk. - Well, since you are a layman with us, the answer to you will be different.

- Blessing? - Dima smiled.

“Both of your circumstances were born of a proud thought,” said Father Theodosius with a sigh. “For they have no hope in the Lord.” Don't you think that without your investigation the murderers will go unpunished? You yourself say, “crying to heaven,” which means straight to the Lord. What do you have to do with it?

“In this world,” Dima said with a sigh, “the works of God are often accomplished by human hands.”

Father Theodosius grinned and nodded.

- So you decided that this was your mission, right?

“Father, I can be mistaken many times,” Dima said. “That’s why I came to you for a blessing.”

“I understand,” said Father Theodosius, “that you feel some kind of guilt before this murdered girl.” What have you done wrong to her?

“I thought badly about her,” Dima said. “Now it seems to me that she was looking for protection in me, and I pushed her away.”

“Be careful not to overdo this repentance,” said the elder. - And in general, you need to repent before the Lord, and not before the memory of an unknown dead girl. But if you think that with these excavations you will in some way atone for your ill will...

“That’s exactly what I think,” Dima hastened to say.

Father Theodosius nodded understandingly.

- Then, go for it. As for the brother who took your treasure into his hands, it would be more useful for him to confess everything himself.

“Of course,” Dima agreed. - Will he just admit it?

“Yes, there is little hope for this,” agreed Father Theodosius. “But you understand that your searches do not induce him to repent at all.” Maybe if you just expose him to the core, that will get through to him, huh?

“Or he’ll ruin it completely,” Dima muttered.

The elder looked at him with interest.

- So you understand this too? - he noted.

-Where does he have more opportunities for death? - Dima asked thoughtfully. - Or will he be exposed as an unworthy monk, or, if he remains unpunished, will he be involved in criminal undertakings with murderers, multiplying his sins many times over? Eh, father?

Father smiled.

“You should just write horror stories for children,” he said. “Both there and there, God’s will will invariably be done on him, but if you are really sure that you can stop him with your investigation, then why not try, huh?”

- Blessing? — Dima smiled again.

“Go ahead,” sighed the priest. - What can you do with you?

Monks who come to serve in the monastery take a vow of non-covetousness

Monks who come to serve in the monastery and give their lives to God take a vow of non-covetousness. This is what is given at tonsure. A monk who trusts in the Kingdom of Heaven denies all earthly riches down to the very minimum property, because the guarantee of his safe existence is not in the abundance of supplies, but in Christ. It is in this that the monk finds real wealth.

Non-covetousness is not only moral commandments, but it is a condition for perfection, which every person should strive for. It is then that he will become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Russian

Morphological and syntactic properties

no-stya-zha-ni·e

Noun, inanimate, neuter, 2nd declension (declension type 7a according to the classification of A. A. Zaliznyak).

Prefix: not-; root: -stacha-; suffix: -ніj; ending: -e.

Pronunciation

• MFA:

Semantic properties

Meaning

1. bookish, outdated selflessness, absence of greed, passion for wealth, hoarding ◆ His non-covetousness was perfect; He didn’t accept alms, but he didn’t give them either, because there was nothing to give; he worked for free, went to the poor to reap and mow, but mainly at night, so that no one could see him. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, “Articles of 1856-1860”, 1856-1860 (quote from the National Corpus of the Russian Language, see References)

Synonyms

1. unselfishness, disinterestedness, non-covetousness

Antonyms

1. greed, love of money

Hypernyms

Hyponyms

Related words

Closest relationship

• nouns: non-acquisitive, non-acquisitive, non-acquisitive; acquisition
• verbs: acquire

Etymology

From not + acquisition, further from ch. acquire, further from praslav. *sъ-tęžati; associated with craving, heavy. Data from the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language were used, including information about the origin of words (2007). See References.

Phraseologisms and stable combinations

Translation

List of translations

Bibliography

To improve this article it is desirable: Add hypernyms to the “Semantic Properties” section Add at least one translation to the “Translation” section

The leader of the non-possessors was Nil Sorsky

As we see from history, non-covetous people are usually called the spiritual and political movement of the Russian Church at the end of the 15th and first half of the 16th century. This term was introduced by Russian liberal Slavophiles in the 2nd half of the 19th century for the Trans-Volga monasteries.

The term was first used by canon law historian Alexei Pavlov. That’s what he called Vassian Patrikeev. All this gradually began to be reflected in the interpretation of the worldview of northern monasticism.

Who is the leader of the non-covetous? It is also customary to explain the position of non-possessors solely by religious and moral beliefs. Also, another unjustified trend was the convergence of the views of his teacher, the Venerable Nile of Sora. Nil Sorsky was considered the ideological inspirer of the non-covetous people; this was their spiritual leader. And Prince Vassian was his student and faithful follower.

It was the views of Nil Sorsky on all issues that were sharply contrasted with the views of Joseph Volotsky.

Nil Sorsky was considered the ideological inspirer of the non-covetous people; this was their spiritual leader. Photo: kirillov-monastyr.ru

It is also worth paying attention to the fact that the problem of the monastic economy did not burden the brethren and monks with their worries. From ancient times, Byzantine monasteries were provided with land grants, which were intended to support the monasticism of the empire. A great increase in monastic land ownership was observed during the era of the Macedonian dynasty.

In the 16th century we see that active distribution of land to monasteries began. Athonite monasteries enjoyed special privileges. Of course, this brought a number of other problems. For example, the fact that in the process of reorienting the church, the problems of worldly life began to be solved. Which was opposed to the original spiritual task of saving the human soul. Soon monasteries began to spread in the East.

Archbishop Eustathius of Thessalonica opposed this. He demanded that monastic land ownership be limited, since they cause great harm, especially for those who decided to accept the monastic image. He said that small monasteries should not have taken land at all. Monasteries must obey their diocesan rulers. Monasteries that were not subordinate to secular voters, where the monks themselves had to deal with affairs and issues that they should not have touched.

The revival of monasticism became associated with the name of St. Gregory of Sinaite. It was he who raised the question of the goals of monastic life.

The revival of monasticism began with the name of the great saint - St. Gregory of Sinaite. This saint raised the question of the goals of monastic life. Photo: simvol-veri.ru

Ideology of movements

The ideological credo of the Josephites and the “Trans-Volga elders” was significantly different.

For the spiritual leader of the “elders” Nil Sorsky, faith in the Lord was an exclusively personal matter for each believer, because everything important happens not in the material world, but in the soul. Hence the call to non-covetousness as a way to achieve complete inner freedom for impeccable service to God.

The “Trans-Volga elders,” including Maxim the Greek and Vassian, did not recognize the nationalization of the Church, reducing the role of monasticism to:

• the ceaseless struggle for the soul of man;
• prayers for the flock and clergy.

Managing the lands and the laity is the task of earthly rulers. In the first years of the reign of Ivan IV, this concept was approved on his part, and in the closest circle of Grozny, the “Chosen Rada,” the main roles were played by priest Sylvester, boyar Adashev and Prince Kurbsky, who sympathized with the views of the Nile.

At the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, the Josephites had difficulty finding agreement with Ivan III, who in those years was more inclined to listen to Elder Nile and was hatching plans to return monastic landholdings to the state.

Dissatisfied with the possibility of secularization, as well as with the condescending attitude of the Grand Duke towards heretical “Judaizers”, for example, towards his close associates, clerk Fyodor Kuritsyn and Archpriest Alexei, Joseph created a theory according to which the ruler is, first of all, a man, although appointed to “divine service” .

In his work “The Enlightener,” Volotsky pointed out that a worldly prince may make mistakes that could destroy not only the ruler himself, but also all his subjects. According to Josephus, which was later modified, a secular ruler should be revered; but princes have power only over the body, and they should be obeyed “bodily, not mentally.”

In addition, at that time Joseph believed that spiritual power was higher than secular power, and the church needed to “worship more” than the sovereign.

Nevertheless, the Josephites, based on the postulate of the responsibility of the worldly ruler for the inhabitants of his state before the Lord, saw his prerogative in caring for both the temporal and spiritual care of people, the protection of the true faith, and the protection of his subjects, including from the influence of heretics. Heretics corrupt the souls of people, and, therefore, are worse than robbers who encroach only on the “body”; This means that they need to be “burned and hanged,” as Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod put it.

Over time, the views of the Josephites on the relationship in the triad “Church - government - people” underwent changes, and they began to consider the position of worldly power not lower, but on an equal footing with church power. Joseph's followers proclaimed that it was a sin to disobey a worldly ruler, and even called for them to serve him as a Lord rather than as a man.

Non-acquisitive people recognized the idea of ​​the government’s responsibility to the people, believing that the duty of the government is to “judge and protect.” For them, a real ruler chosen by God must be aware of his highest responsibility to the Lord and people, and observe moral principles in accordance with his status as God’s anointed.

On the contrary, according to the teachings of the Josephites, rulers are not just chosen by Heaven, they themselves are almost sacred personalities.

Therefore, their ideas were liked by the Russian princes and tsars to such an extent that they abandoned the gigantic land holdings of the church, receiving in return inaccessibility to control public institutions, that is, they became absolute monarchs.

Already under Ivan the Terrible, a discussion began on the issue of books. Being supporters of printed books that appeared in Rus' at that time, the non-covetous people pointed out a lot of mistakes made by copyists, which led to discord and “disorder” in church service and worldly life.

The Josephites perceived printing as another “Latin” heresy, arguing that for ordinary people “the honor of the Apostle and the Gospel” was a sin.

After the death of Nil Sorsky, Vassian Kosoy became a follower of the non-covetous people.

Let us also pay attention to another spiritual leader of non-possessors - this is Vassian Kosoy. He became a representative of the non-covetous party after the death of Nil Sorsky. Vassian was a prince by birth and belonged to the most noble boyar families. After he left for Moscow, he entered the service of Grand Duke Vasily the First. With the help of the grand ducal power, he was able to reach many heights.

The successor of the leaders of the non-covetous people after the death of Nil Sorsky was Vassian Kosoy. Vassian was a prince by birth and belonged to the most noble boyar families. Photo: studfiles.net

Vassian decided to give his life to God behind the monastery wall. It was there that his new life began. At first, the monastery charter did not suit his character. There he met Neil, and with him he escaped to the monastery. It was then that he became a zealous supporter of non-covetous people, although at first he did not share this worldview.

Vassian learned a lot from the Nile, and also adopted a lot from him. If we pay attention to history, we see that the monk Vassian was one of the most interesting figures in Russian history of the 16th century. He was a rather peculiar person who combined himself and his activities with arrogance and passion.

At the time of the death of Nil Sorsky, Vassian had a fairly good understanding of the situation. He did not speak out about his participation in the activities of the council. It was he who helped place Metropolitan Varlaam in a certain role. This decree was made without a council of bishops by order of the Grand Duke, to whom Vassian Kosoy, in turn, turned. It was he who advised to nominate Metropolitan Varlaam to the metropolitan see. Metropolitan Varlaam sympathized with the non-covetous people and became the abbot of the Simonov Monastery, where Vassian then lived. To support him in his business, he sent to him another of the people who then lived on Athos - Maxim the Greek.

Maxim the Greek most fully developed the state-legal aspects of non-covetousness

Maxim the Greek came to Moscow quite by accident, but even then he was a remarkable and major figure in the history of the Russian church. Information about him is very fragmentary and unreliable. It was Maxim Grek who most fully developed the state-legal aspects of non-covetousness.

Maxim Grek most fully developed the state-legal aspects of non-covetousness. Photo: prepodobnii.org

He became the successor after Vassian the Oblique. He tried to support both his laws, which had already been introduced, and began to introduce something of his own. He called on the king to organize the kingdom entrusted to him according to Christ’s commandments and laws, and he also called on everyone to create justice and righteousness in the middle of the earth. It is also worth saying that he connected the structure of government, in which the tsar had to rule together with the metropolitan and listen to his advice. He had to take care of his subjects in a spirit of humanity and tenderness. Royal power had to be limited by both divine and positive law, as well as moral norms. He tried to ensure that the secular and spiritual authorities lived in close union, since they had one goal in front of them.

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